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Recordings

The first in a two part set of Beethoven's Lieder und Gesänge. Beethoven himself was not a keen song writer, yet despite this almost half of his total works call for a voice. This album includes some of the best of those compositions and fe ...» More

'Stephan Genz has one of the most beautiful voices around today, used with such authority and imagination that I have found myself playing his Beethov ...'This disc, immaculately recorded, should win many new friends for Beethoven's songs' (The Daily Telegraph)» More

This latest release from the multi-award-winning partnership of Gerald Finley and Julius Drake features a literary and musical form which inspired the greatest voices of German Romanticism. The foremost poets and composers of the age saw the balla ...» More

Do you know the country where lemons grow? Where through dark-green leaves golden oranges glow? Where gentle breezes come from a clear sky And the myrtle is still and the laurel grows high? Do you know it, then? It is there, there I would go, my beloved, with you.

Do you know the house, its roof rests on colonnades? Its great hall is agleam, it has balconnades And marble figures lean down and say: ‘Poor child, what have they done to you, pray?’ Do you know it, then? It is there, there I would go, my protector, with you.

Do you know the mountain, its path in the cloud? The mule picks his way through the mist, its head bowed. In caves there, you’ll find antique dragons’ kin, The sheer rock face, the great water-fall’s din. Do you know it then? It is there, there We must go, Father—O let us go now!

The song, Mignon, or “Kennst du das Land” comes from Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister’s Years of Apprenticeship). Mignon, one of literature’s most haunting figures, is a quasi-androgynous creature (Goethe calls her a “Knabenmädchen”, or “boy-girl”) in her early teens. Kidnapped when very young, she is rescued from her harsh life in an acrobatic troupe by the title character Wilhelm Meister and falls in love with him. She symbolizes humanity’s two natures, earthly and spiritual, male and female; she is the spirit of Romantic poetry, and her life is governed by “Sehnsucht” or “longing”, a form of desire manifested as affliction. At the beginning of Book 3, Mignon sings Kennst du das Land with “a certain solemn grandeur, as if…she were imparting something of importance.” Beethoven imbues her memories of her native Italy with the solemnity and expressivity Goethe wanted and then ends each stanza with the urgent refrain “Dahin, dahin!” and an appeal to her “Beloved, Protector, Father” (Wilhelm) to take her there. The “moderately slow” portion of each verse is set in duple metre, the “faster” refrain in 6/8, Beethoven thus emphasizing the surge of sudden passion that animates each of Mignon’s appeals to Wilhelm.

Heart, my heart, what is this? What ails you so much? What a strange new life this is! I feel as though I hardly know you! All that you once loved has vanished, Gone all of your happiness, Gone your determination and inner peace, Ah, how could this have come about?

Have a fair maiden’s blooms, Her beautiful figure, Her honest and faithful eyes Caused ceaseless tyranny? That I could tear myself away from her And flee determinedly away, Yet no sooner have I done so, Ah, then my path leads directly back.

And by these magic threads That can never be broken This carefree maiden Binds me to her against my will; I must reside in her enchanted circle Under her complete control. What a transformation, alas! Love! Love, let me go free!

This is a consummate revision of a setting Beethoven had already made in 1798/9 (WoO127). It is the only one of the Op 75 set of songs to be through-composed, and is by some distance the subtlest setting of its kind that Beethoven had written up to this time. Indeed, its seemingly spontaneous exuberance and fluent ease of expression (hardly typical Beethoven traits) and effortless interplay between voice and piano mark it out as perhaps the finest song in the collection. The ending appears to have given Beethoven endless problems—his sketch books contain no fewer than seven different versions of this one passage alone—which may explain the strangely curtailed feel of even the printed version.

What, my heart, is going on? What’s distressing you so much? This is a strange and new existence And I’ve totally lost touch. Gone is all that gave you pleasure, Gone, what made you shed a tear, Gone, your hard work and your leisure; How, oh how did we get here?

Have you been struck down by the beauty Of this dear person, this young flower Whose eyes show kindness, loyal duty And exert an infinite power? If I try to hold my distance, Assert myself free from this bane, In no time the road I’ve taken Leads me back to her again.

And it’s by this magic thread, Which it seems just can’t be broken, That my wayward darling holds me Despite all the words I’ve spoken! I live subject to her magic powers, Do everything she says—just so… My life—what disruption! Love, O Love, O please let go!

The words of Neue Liebe, neues Leben were born of Goethe’s brief betrothal for some months in 1775 to Anne Elisabeth Schönemann (1758-1817), the daughter of a patrician family in Frankfurt. Goethe despised the social circle in which “Lili”, as he called her, moved, and the engagement soon came to shipwreck. In 1830, two years before his death, Goethe said of her, “She was the first woman I truly and deeply loved; I can also say that she was the last.” Beethoven had a long history of engagement with this poem: he sketched it circa 1792, set it to music in 1798/99 (WoO127), and revised it thoroughly as Op 75, No 2. The energy of new passion bubbles throughout this music, in which exultation is at war with the desire to break away from such bonds. (Beethoven too knew the clash between the longing for intimacy and the demands of artistic creativity.) That the persona charges right into the proceedings without any piano introduction is youthful erotic impetuosity incarnate.

There was once a king Who had a large flea. He loved it not a little, Just like his own son. So he called his tailor. The tailor arrived: ‘Now, take his measurements for a suit and measure him for trousers!’

In satin and in silk He was now attired; He had ribbons on his suit. He also had a crucifix, And was also a minister With a large star. So his brothers and sisters were Also distinguished courtiers.

And the men and women of the court Were much set upon; The queen and her lady-in-waiting Were bitten and nibbled; And they were not allowed to pinch, Or to scratch them away. We bash and smother it Whenever it bites.

This most indelibly memorable of all Beethoven’s songs—as well as the most overtly playful—sets the famous passage from Goethe’s Faust known as Mephistopheles’ ‘Song of the Flea’. The insect’s darting movements are brilliantly suggested by the registral hopping of the piano part, while the last verse screws up the mounting hysteria with a series of excited scratches culminating in the squashing of the flea right at the end.

There was once a king Who had a large flea. He loved it not a little, Just like his own son. So he called his tailor. The tailor arrived: ‘Now, take his measurements for a suit and measure him for trousers!’

In satin and in silk He was now attired; He had ribbons on his suit. He also had a crucifix, And was also a minister With a large star. So his brothers and sisters were Also distinguished courtiers.

And the men and women of the court Were much set upon; The queen and her lady-in-waiting Were bitten and nibbled; And they were not allowed to pinch, Or to scratch them away. We bash and smother it Whenever it bites.

A terrible singer himself, Beethoven was avowedly frustrated by the limitations of the human voice. Yet he still produced over eighty Lieder, ranging from witty or melancholy trifles in folk vein to the ‘spiritual songs’ to texts by Gellert. Composed in the mid-1790s and revised for publication in 1809, Aus Goethes Faust Op 75 No 3 sets Mephistopheles’ famous ballad ‘Flohlied’ (the ‘Song of the Flea’) from the Auerbachs Keller scene (this noted Leipzig tavern still exists today) in Faust: Ein Fragment, which Goethe later incorporated into Part One of his Faust epic. While the vocal part is in bluff ballad style, the keyboard brilliantly enlivens the viciously satirical verses with its manic leaps between registers and biting little grace-notes.

There once was a King who had a great flea, He loved it like one of the family. He called on his tailor to make it some clothes, Not forgetting a pair of tight-fitting hose.

Now, got up smartly in velvet and silk With sashes and medals, the first of his ilk As Minister of State, a Great Star he could sport, And all his relations held positions at Court.

The Lords and the Ladies were bitten to bits As the Court played host to this plague of nits. The Queen and her maid were suffering too; But there was absolutely nothing anyone could do. Now we, once bitten, we wouldn’t delay, We’d pinch, squash and crush’em till they’d gone away.

Beethoven was neither the first nor the last to be drawn to Mephistopheles’s “Song of the Flea” (Aus Goethes Faust) from the scene in Auerbach’s Keller, already included in Faust. Ein Fragment (the earliest stage of this lifelong project on Goethe’s part) and later in Part 1 of the great German tragedy. Auerbach’s is a real place: Goethe’s favourite wine bar, now located below the Mädlerpassage at Grimmaische Straße 2. According to legend, the alchemist Johann Georg Faust—the distant progenitor in real life of Goethe’s title character—once rode a wine barrel in this establishment from the cellar to the street, a feat he could only have accomplished with the devil’s help. For this satirical song of a king who loved his flea and forbade his court to kill the miniature tormenters, Beethoven intersperses the narrative in the singer’s part with biting, grace-noted pinpricks and figures that plunge downwards in diabolical glee. Those who know the first theme of the first movement of his Symphony No 1 will hear its twin in the dynamism of this song’s introduction.

With twinkling eye, music and song Handsome young Christel wooed. No other boy was half as nice In all the neighbourhood. No, not one Was so much fun Or held me in his sway. But, all too aware, He brought pressure to bear Till he had had his way.

True, there was many another boy As good-looking as him, But all the girls wanted to toy, Make eyes and flirt with him. Soon, their flattery won the day And they had wrenched his heart away; His affection had been turned. Despite my appeals He took to his heels And here he left me—spurned.

His twinkling eye, music and song, Which had seemed like a dream, His kiss which lasted all night long, Have cost my self-esteem. Look sisters, at my sorry fate, And sisters, if of late Some rat has set his cap at you, Don’t trust his word, whate’er you do; Just look at me, at wretched me, Just look at me and flee.

Gretels Warnung to a poem by Gustav Adolph von Halem (1752-1819) is a strophic song that Beethoven found either in the Homer translator Johann Heinrich Voss’s Musen-Almanach for 1793 or Halem’s 1789 anthology of poetry and prose. This little song belongs to a sub-category of 18th- and 19th-century poetry in which a young woman, seduced and abandoned, warns the reader against incurring—or causing—a similar fate. (Goethe’s “Die Spinnerin”, set to music by Schubert, D274, is a particularly poignant example.) Beethoven’s song is in major mode and does not exude lamentation, but the rising chromatic tension in mid-strophe to depict Chris’s persistence in wooing is an eloquent touch.

Your dear soul, Love’s words address Now with this plea: My friend, whom I chose on this earth, Remember me.

Should you, when the moon was full, Have yearned for me as zephyrs blew, Their music sure conveyed My fond Adieu.

Christian Ludwig Reissig’s (1783-?) name would probably be unknown to us now if Beethoven had not been drawn to his verse for eight songs, more than any other poet except Goethe. The words for An den fernen Geliebten came from the first edition in 1809 of Reissig’s anthology, Blümchen der Einsamkeit (Little flower of loneliness). Distant beloveds were a sad obsession of the composer’s; the repetitions in this tiny strophic song convey something essential about the nature of grief, whose sufferers traverse sad ground over and over. In two sources, one an autograph manuscript, one printed, Beethoven provides us with slightly different endings to the strophe, the second with its own built-in echo.

It has not been my birthright To be either rich or great, Yet I find that I’m quite content, Could wish for no better fate.

Fortune has given me a friend, A man after my own heart, Where drinking, kissing, fooling around All play a major part.

We approach our drinking wisely, Drain each bottle to the dregs, For it’s known that on life’s journey Wine gives a man new legs.

Should my present way of life Yield to one more forlorn, Remember, in this world no rose Flowers without a thorn.

In the strophic song, Der Zufriedene, to a text taken from Reissig’s Blümchen, the pianist alternates between unity with the singer and demonstrations of contentment’s merry vitality, the song in accord with the Enlightenment concept of friendship as a prime source of happiness.